Carl Sagan's Contact

1
Carl Sagan's Contact

• Honors 368, Section 1
• Science in Science Fiction
• Odis Hickman
• April 3, 2001

2
Wormholes Sci-Fi Trapdoors

• Einsteins general theory of relativity
• Time moves slower in space
• Reversal is possible
• Is time travel possible?

3
Theory of Wormholes

• Matter is neither created nor destroyed
• Objects sucked into a rotating, electrically
  charged blackhole do not disappear
• One theory is that they reappear elsewhere out of
  an exit point or whitehole
• The tunnel that links a blackhole and whitehole
  is known as a wormhole

4
Wormholes

• Possibly created after the Big Bang, which began
  the Universe roughly thirteen billion years ago
• The wormhole provides a convenient and rapid way
  to travel great distances

5
Wormholes cont.

• According to current theories, natural wormholes
  are too small for star travel
• Wormholes are thought to be very unstable, being
  subject to collapse due to internal and external
  influences
• It is thought that a technically advanced
  civilization could find the means of widening
  these wormholes and keeping them open, or even
  creating their own

6
Whiteholes

• As universes have a beginning and end, so do
  wormholes
• Whiteholes are the reverse of blackholes
• The equations of general relativity have the
  interesting mathematical property of symmetry in
  time
• Just as a black hole can only suck things in, a
  white hole can only spit things out

7
Whiteholes cont.

• You can take any solution to the equations and
  imagine that time flows backwards rather than
  forwards and you will get another valid solution
  to the equations
• These may exist in a different universe, region
  of space, or time
• If not for the wormhole, it would be completely
  disconnected from the blackholes region

8
Blackholes

• A region of space that has so much mass
  concentrated in it that there is no way for a
  nearby object to escape its gravitational pull
• We suspect that most of the black holes that
  exist are produced in the deaths of massive stars
• Black holes are believed to weigh about as much
  as a massive star or ten times the mass of the sun

9
Blackholes cont.

• The interior of a charged or rotating black hole
  can "join up" with a corresponding white hole in
  such a way that you can fall into the black hole
  and pop out of the white hole

10
Blackholes cont.

• As you get closer and closer to the center of the
  hole, "tidal" gravitational forces begin to take
  affect

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Blackholes cont.

• As you get closer to the center, these tidal
  forces get more and more intense until eventually
  ripping you apart
• Sagan originally wanted to use black holes as the
  aliens' space transit system, but soon realized
  any travelers would be stretched and crushed into
  oblivion, thus settling on artificial
  intergalactic wormholes

12
Kip Thorne

• Relativity theorist and astrophysicist
• Professor of Theoretical Physics at California
  Institue of Technology
• Has researched in several areas including
  gravitational radiation, black holes, neutron
  stars and the nature of space, time, and gravity

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Kip Thorne cont.

• Theory that wormholes may act as time machines
• According to quantum mechanics, if a spacecraft
  is traveling at the speed of light in a wormhole,
  then time would be moving backward relative to
  other objects

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Kip Thorne cont.

• Advised Carl Sagan on Contact
• Sagan wanted a plausible way in which the
  characters would be able to zip around the galaxy
  at superlight speeds without violating the laws
  of physics to a great extent

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Examples of Wormholes

• 2001 A Space Odyssey
• Stanley Kubrick was the first director to depict
  his vision of time travel through a wormhole
• Star Trek Generations
• Uses a moving ribbon of energy, referred to as a
  Nexus
• Has the power to destroy ships and civilizations
  and also transport people through time or a
  fantasy

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Examples of Wormholes cont.

• Deep Space Nine
• A wormhole connects the Alpha and Gamma quadrants
  from opposite sides of the Milky Way
• Sliders
• Featured a portal that would transport its users
  to parallel universes
• Timecop
• Wormholes permit the reversal of a murder

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Related Sources

• Center for Particle Astrophysics, an NSF Science
  and Technology Center
• http//cfpa.berkeley.edu/home.html
• Black Holes and Beyond
• http//www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/BlackHoles
  .html
• Wormholes Searching for a Subway to the Stars
• http//www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/wormhole
  s.htp